Due to the tsunami from the Russian earthquake, the kayak guiding gig I was supposed to do today in SF Bay was canceled. Out of an abundance of caution - I still went paddling at 9:30 or so and all was fine (though some animals were acting weird).
Here is the tide heights at the tide station 3/4 mile or so inside the Bay on San Francisco side.
The biggest jump was from 2:12am to 2:30am. 2:12 the depth at the tide station inside the gate was 2.6 feet. By 2:30am, the height had increased to 5.1 feet. So in 18 minutes, the depth of the bay increased by 2.5’. All that water had to rush in through the gate and around the various constrictions. Probably pretty significant currents.
Normally, in that time period it would have gone from 4’ to 4.1’.
The water supposedly receded by 15’ at the Hawaiian Islands before the tsunami hit, which supposedly an associated phenomenom. Thankfully, the actual waves were just over 4’ but with a lot more energy than the types of waves that surfers welcome.
Reminds me of a coworker of mine who was out on a tourist “kayaking tour” (with recreational SOTs) in Indonesia when the Indian Ocean Tsunami hit in 2004. Her group happened to be inside an atoll. She said the water drained out of the atoll and the rose back up precipitously a short time later. No one was hurt on that tour. But thousands died that day. Talk about luck/fate/grace…
I got to see some small tidal changes from the Tohoku 2011 Tsunami, the sea lions and water birds did indeed appear to be concerned about the changes ~ 2’ happening so quickly. For about two years after the tsunami I used to find lots of Japanese wooden and plastic debris, some of it appeared to be very old fishing rigs and unusual pieces of old boats.
Here is what they saw in Crescent City, up in far north California. Not sure what time this was shot, but it appears to be daylight, where first waves hit just after midnight.
